5 Tips For Fan Motivation

The other day I spotted a nice post on Hypebot regarding turning your fans into marketers. It came from Sanjay Dholakia, CEO of Crowd Factory, who posted about motivating your fans in such a way that they become guerrilla marketers for your brand. "How To Turn Your Superfans Into Guerrilla Marketers," written by Dholakia, is a quick intro to the concept of the "superfan" or "your tribe" and how they will market for you if they're rewarded appropriately.

In brief, these are his 5 tips for superfan motivation (my take in italics):

1. Offer exclusive content. This can be behind-the-scenes videos, song remixes or outtakes, special invites to shows or after-show parties, or any number of other possibilities. The fact of the matter is, a true fan loves even the smallest detail, and that can be used to your advantage.

2. Raise the rewards as sharing increases. The more the fan markets for you, the more he/she is rewarded, which increases the motivation yet again.

3. Provide a platform for expression and reward that activity. This is necessary for growing your tribe. Your fans need a forum both to talk to you and to each other.

4. Recognize loyalty with prizes and public status. A shout out from stage, on a blog, tweet, Facebook post or just about anywhere else goes a long way to maintaining that loyalty.

5. Help them do good. Help your fans give and volunteer for a good cause.

The first four items are points that I have espoused both on this blog and in my book, Music 3.0: A Survival Guide For Making Music In The Internet Age. They're the basis for the tribal concept of fans as set out by Seth Godin, and are necessary to maintaining and growing any fan base. The 5th point is new in that it also adds a charity element to the others. People enjoy giving to and volunteering for good causes, which can add extra luster to your brand that can go beyond the benefits of the other 4 points.

Follow these simple tips and you'll find that not only will you keep your fans, but they'll help recruit even more for you. 

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